1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an error correction method, an apparatus and a program product for performing error correction for data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data recorded on a disk such as a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) include data (ECC: Error Correction Code) blocks, wherein correction codes have been added to original data, and when the data are read from the disk, error corrections are performed for all the ECC blocks. An ECC block, which is the minimum data recording unit, is composed of user data in 16 sectors of 2048 bytes each, a total memory capacity of 32 K bytes, and includes added error codes. By performing an error correction for each ECC block, the reliability of the data can be improved. In an ECC block, each row includes 182 bytes and each column includes 208 bytes, and the error correction can be performed for up to five bytes in one row. When there is an error exceeding five bytes in a row, the row is defined as an error correction incapable row. This error correction process is performed for all 208 rows (hereinafter referred to a C1 error correction). And when there is an error exceeding 16 bytes in one column, this column is defined as an error correction incapable column. This error correction process is performed for all 182 columns (hereinafter referred to as a C2 error correction).
A disk reproduction apparatus, which reduces the data, to which the ECC data has been added, recorded on a disk, performs an error correction process for each ECC block, and performs other processes, such as data decompression, and outputs an audio signal and a video signal.
However, since the error correction process is conventionally limited to a predetermined single type, EDC (Error Defection Code) errors tend to occur frequently when the quality of the data is poor, and deterioration of the error correction capability occurs.